Shared Garden
- Gordon and his family are going to be working on a proposal for share work/share harvest on their land in Carrigaline... see below for news.
- Anyone in West Cork, I'm working on a 6 acre farm with big polytunnel, near Enniskeane. If interested ask Andy. Could help out in exchange for food maybe?
- Shared garden space
Gordon and family: gardening at Bracken
We have a patch of ground (about 200 square metres) currently overgrown with brambles/bracken, which is planned for an orchard of dwarf trees (mainly Irish/Scottish/English heritage apples and other disease-resistant varieties for organic growing). The orchard is intended to be as productive as possible, to provide an income for us by selling the fruit. In addition we will be selling apple trees of various heritage varieties. We'd welcome people to work with us to create this orchard, and to share in the produce.
A permaculture-based approach (minimising manual work and using natural processes to do the work for us) could include (after clearing): planting potatoes to break up the ground, planting comfrey to nourish it and get nutrients up from deep layers, then (after digging the potatoes) planting two crops of green manure then mulching over the winter.
- Now: clear ground, shred brambles to make compost heap
- Early to mid March: get potatoes in: each family plants an area of potatoes for their own use
- Next: plant comfrey in between potatoes
- Early April: graft the trees. People might be interested in seeing how this is done and maybe grafting their own trees to take home (just chip in enough to cover cost of rootstock, €2.50-€3 or so; we can spare a few rootstocks).
- 12-14 weeks after planting: harvest potatoes (early-mid June). Families would dig the potatoes they planted and keep the entire harvest. We gain by having the ground cleared and loosened, everyone gains by having potatoes.
- Next, plant green manure; probably clover, to get some nitrogen into the ground.
- Before flowering of this green manure (probably early - mid summer), dig it in, and plant a different green manure
- Once that is ready, either dig it in then mulch, or just mulch it.
- In the winter, we plant the trees in the ground we have prepared.
If you're interested in coming to work with us, just give a call - Gordon, 087 790 8151 - or e-mail to govicat@hotmail.com. I'll announce on this page when we are
planning something special, but really any time there is work to do and you're welcome to join in.
Progress so far (please let me know if I forgot anything!)
Sat/Sun 1/2 March: Holly, Martin, Val, Liam, Cara, Darren, Donovan, Jace, Sonia, Tariq and Jenni (wow! so many people!) came round to help. We cleared a considerable amount of ground; some working manually, Tariq cutting brambles from about half of it with the brushcutter. Victorita and I also cleared ground. I dug up bramble roots.
Sat 8 March: Val and Martin came over and helped to clear the area that Tariq had cut. They also did some shredding. Victorita and I also cleared ground. I dug up bramble roots.
Sun 9 March: Victorita and I cleared ground. I dug up bramble roots.
Wed 12 March: Sonia raked over a large area and moved soft material into heaps where it will rot down. I measured out the ground and marked positions for rows of trees (next year) and rows of potatoes (this year), and dug up some bramble roots. We'll have space for 15 rows spaced 2 metres apart (they're dwarf trees!); rows are 4-8 metres long, on average probably about 5 metres. This means there'll be about 50-60 trees.
Plans
Saturday 15th March: sorry, we can't have anyone over, because we are going to look at a polytunnel for a school garden project we are involved in. I might dig up some bramble roots, though.
Sunday 16th/Monday 17th March: planting potatoes!! We will provide seed potatoes of various types, and you're welcome to bring your own too, if you have a variety that you like. There is also a lot of shredding to be done. (Many people enjoy shredding - why not give it a try?)
Please get in touch if you'd like to come over either of these days...
(Also, if you've got some free time on a weekday and would like to come over, let us know - it's not only for weekends.)
Friday 18th April update: Sorry not to have added anything to this page for a while. I'm grafting currently; some of you had expressed interest in this, so if you'd like to come over to see what's involved, you're welcome to get in touch - best phone/text to 087 790 8151 as I'm outside much of the time. Any day - not only weekends.